“Suppose it were Mortimer and you were going to die and you found out he had another woman,” Llona asked her. “Wouldn’t you want revenge?”
“You bet your bippy! Still, I can’t help wishing Mortimer had that much gumption. But that’s another story.” Olivia sighed. “What is it you want me to do?” she wondered.
“I’m not sure,” Llona confessed. “Help me any way you can, I guess. Help me find just the right kind of bitch for Archer. Help me set it up. I don’t know. Anything you can think of too.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” Olivia promised sincerely. “Men!” She closed ranks for the battle of the sexes. “They deserve what they get! They deserve what we give them!”
Llona agreed with that. And she counted on it. She depended on Olivia’s soft-voiced anti-male attitude to work to her advantage in getting revenge on Archer. She counted on Archer’s mother and Neva Holdkumb running true to form. The combined efforts -- theirs and hers -- should bear fruit. And that fruit should teach Archer a lesson that would last him a lifetime.
Archer didn’t know it, but now that lifetime was about to begin!
CHAPTER FOUR
The best of men are mortal, and all-too human. Some time during his life Abraham Lincoln broke wind in mixed company. One time, at least, the last drop of Albert Schweitzer’s urine trickled down the inside of his pants leg. And once, surely once, Sigmund Freud, dispassionate listener, found himself concealing an uninvited erection. Such events must have been. The best of men are human.
And the average man? Or, of more interest, the average man with ideals, the average idealist? Must not the faux pas of living be a larger part of his lot in life? Indeed, may they not be his way of life? definitive! the interior fifth columnist to his integral idealism?
At any rate, so it was with Archer Hornsby, most mortal and human of men. Archer was an idealist. He truly believed in equal rights for minorities. He truly believed that war was evil and that the U. S. involvement in the war in Vietnam was most evil. Insofar as Archer was able, he worked hard to implement his ideals. But if the best of men are human, the average man is even more so, and Archer's idealism kept running aground on the shoals of his humanity.
To be more specific, his sex drive sometimes washed his ethics up on the rocks. He’d start out working for peace, and end up with a piece. “All we are saying, is give Peace a chance!” Archer would carol, and the record would get stuck and he’d find himself giving a piece like Shirley Simpell chance after chance after chance: his aim had been to convince just one member of the “silent majority” that it really was better to “make love, not war,” but things had gotten out of hand and now Archer felt like he was selling out to the entire “military-industrial complex” in the curvy manifestation of Shirley Simpell. What’s more, there was danger of the involvement muddying up his relationship with Llona and distracting him from his job as well.
The problem wasn’t the time he spent with Shirley. The problem was his preoccupation with her when they were apart. Too much of Archer’s time was spent formulating the arguments which inevitably were dissipated by the circumstances when they were together. For instance-—
“There’s evidence that President Roosevelt lent moral support to Ho Chi-Minh as opposed to the French colonial rulers in Indo-China,” Archer would point out to Shirley as he slipped his hand inside her sloppy-Joe sweater, under her demure schoolgirl bra, and caressed the pink nipple nestling there.
“Ancient history. Roosevelt was failing. Yalta sellout!” Shirley might pant in reply, taking time out from blowing in his ear to lick her orange-flavored lollipop. “Jeepers!” Her nubile breast would wriggle under his touch.
“The record shows that he United States was the first nation to break the Geneva Accords.” Archer would remove the bra and bury his eager lips between the fluttering young flesh-mounds.
“North Vietnam was already sneaking soldiers into the South and fomenting Civil War!” Shirley would tickle both palms of his hands simultaneously and breathe hot air down the back of his neck. “Hot dawg!”
“Troop intervention in Vietnam was never in our national interest and still isn’t.” Archer’s hand under Shirley’s skirt, just above Shirley's knee. “Trust me?”
“First Vietnam, then Laos, then all of Southeast Asia, then the Pacific, and finally Greater Los Angeles!” Shirley demurely raising her skirt the better to observe the position of Archer’s hand. “I trust you.” Thighs with a hint of baby fat itchily rubbing together. “Dominoes! . . . Holy cow!"
Archer’s hand squeezing the warm thighs. “. . . paranoid fear of Communism . . .” Breathing heavily; short of breath. “. . . supporting one corrupt regime after another . . .” Hand slipping between the thighs. “Trust me?”
“I trust you!” Shirley allowing her legs to part; one last lick at the lollipop, then laying it aside. “. . . United States prestige . . . national pride and honor . . . fulfilling our obligations . . . Golly-gee!”
“Self-determination . . . immediate withdrawal . . .” Archer tugging at the cotton panties. “Trust me?”
“I trust you.” Shirley raising up, permitting the panties to be removed, settling back with her bobby-sox at right angles. “. . . never lost a war . . . duty-bound to prevent a blood-bath . . . Heavens to Betsy Ross! . . .”
“. . . killing the people we’re supposed to be protecting . . . ” Archer sprawling over her, lunging, making contact, moving rhythmically. “End the war!”
“Win it!” Shirley rising and falling like the surf.
“End it!”
“Win it!”
A house divided against itself cannot stand. But its struggles can make for one hell of an orgasm! So it was with Archer and Shirley.
Is it any wonder that the dialectics of sex with Shirley were constantly on Archer’s mind? Add to his troubles that his boss, E. Z. Holdkumb, had been regarding him peculiarly lately, and that Llona had also been behaving oddly, On top of all that, there came this phone call from his mother.
She wanted Archer to come to see her, to spend the evening, and she specified that he shouldn’t bring Llona. It seemed odd. But Archer was still sufficiently hooked umbilical-wise not to protest the demand. He told his mother he’d be there.
“You’re late.” Mrs. Hornsby answered the bell on the first ring. “Wipe your feet,” she instructed Archer.
Obediently, he wiped his feet. Then he followed his mother into the living room. A thirtyish woman, perhaps a year or two older than Archer, not unattractive, was sitting there deftly balancing a cup of coffee and a plate with three home-baked cookies.
“Say hello to Stella Spayed,” Mrs. Hornsby told Archer.’
“How do you do, Miss Spayed.”
“Mrs. Spayed.” She corrected him pleasantly.
“Oh. Sorry, Mrs. Spayed.”
“I’m a widow,” she added with a smile.
“I’m sorry.” Archer didn’t know what else to say.
“Stella's been a widow for over a year. It’s too late for condolences,” Mrs. Hornsby informed Archer.
“Of course.” Archer accepted the cup of coffee and plate of cookies his mother thrust upon him and sat down. With the cup and saucer in one hand and the cookie dish in the other, he felt like a statue of Justice weighing the scales.
“You don’t like my coffee!” It was an accusation.
“Sure I do, Mom.” Moving like a nervous robot, Archer managed to bring the coffee ‘cup to his lips and took a sip.
“You used to be crazy for my cookies!”
“Still am, Mom.” Archer bent his cookie-plate elbow until one of the cookies was within reach of his lips. He snared the cookie and bit it in half. He chewed one half with ostentatious relish and let the other half fall back to the plate.